Arcata Police Log: Wandering Zomboid Goes Slo-Mo Vogueing In Mini-Mart Parking Spot
• New Year’s Eve 1:09 p.m. A man at a Uniontown variety store took a sweatshirt off a shelf, put it on and paid for it on his way out.
3:01 p.m. A bicyclist put her pretty white-with-pink-flames Betty Women’s Beach Cruiser bicycle in a Plaza bike rack while she went shopping, not bothering to lock it.
4:53 p.m. A resident of a multi-story downtown senior housing complex complained of an upstairs neighbor pounding with a hammer and using power tools for some unknown purpose. The neighbor denied this, and other residents confirmed the absence of carpentry activity.
9:54 p.m. A tan-colored Haro BMX bike was stolen off an O Street porch.
10:37 p.m. Some guy with a gray ponytail went mega-aggro at a Uniontown shopping center for reasons unclear, slammed a car door on some guy and “got in other people’s faces.” He was found at Eighth and G streets, where about 50 bazillion cops were conveniently located for New Year’s Eve enforcement, and arrested.
11:55 p.m. A drunk was arrested outside a Plaza liquor store.
• New Year’s Day 12:16 a.m. Barely had 2013 begun when a town’s honor was hemorrhaged by one individual’s lack of judgment. Flagged down outside a Plaza bar, he found inside a person beveraged heavily enough to warrant a public drunkenness arrest.
2:47 a.m. A man called 911 claiming to be “running from federal agents,” and GPS tracking located him near the hospital ER. He’d been transported there from McKinleyville, and was being verbally abusive and combative with the staff.
3:20 a.m. A 20-year-old woman flickering in and out of consciousness was considered a possible victim of alcohol poisoning, and was ambulanced from Union Street to the hospital.
7:13 a.m. A woman explained to police that she was being stalked by spirits and Kevin Federline.
9:36 a.m. A red-hoodied man threw bottles at people on 13th Street, then courageously fled.
12:14 p.m. After alleged threats at a Uniontown store, a man in a red jacket was banished.
11:35 p.m. One of the wandering zomboids who stop and stare at random objects for prolonged periods did some slo-mo vogue-ing at a Valley West mini-mart by walking into a parking space and standing there, silent and inert.
• Tuesday, January 2 9:41 a.m. A loud argument on Alliance Road was marked by screaming, pacing, bleeding and a possible pill overdose, with a victim hospitalized.
9:54 a.m. A caller reported graffiti in bloom on wooden fencing near an Alliance Road stop ’n’ rob, “graphic genitalia” on a walkway linking Wisteria Way and Alliance Road, blue graffiti on the Wisteria Way side, and graffiti at Foster Avenue and Wisteria Way that “looks terrible.” The scrawlings were all found to be old, but the information was forwarded to the volunteer graffiti abatement unit.
12:34 p.m. It took but nine minutes for a car parked in a handicapped or “shopper convenience” spot to be reported and cited with an awesome $330 ticket. So the parker can’t possibly claim they had been there “for just a minute.”
12:46 p.m. Well, what would you do if a man in a green rain suit with a black beard and a swollen right hand stood out in front of your Alliance Road house for three to four hours? Calling the cops and having them move him along worked.
1:46 p.m. The memory-encumbering properties of cannabis may have their charms, but they didn’t well-serve a smoker at a Valley West motel, who left a bag o’ pot behind. It was picked up for disposal.
3:20 p.m. A car parked at 12th and Spring streets had “PIG” scratched into its windshield.
4:14 p.m. Union Street apartment dwellers, one upstairs and the other downstairs, accuse each other of being too damn loud, creating a vexing symmetry.
6:38 p.m. A drug-wracked man at a Valley West everything’s-a-dollar store exhibited extreme paranoia, so much so that he was almost committed. The alcohol, hash and meth he had on-board had not proven especially helpful to his mental state.
9:06 p.m. A man in the ER was convinced that people were waiting outside the hospital to beat him up, and he refused to leave. He was deemed 5150 and taken to the nervous hospital.
• Thursday, January 3 2:59 a.m. A woman in Room 114 at a value motel in Valley West was “acting weird,” if hitting things and having to be restrained is weird. She was arrested on public drunkenness, resisting arrest and battery on a police officer.
5:52 a.m. A woman was heard screaming and crying on Heather Lane. She told someone she was looking for the person who was supposed to be taking care of her. Police scoured the area, but didn’t find her.
8:53 a.m. A man with a red beard had an argument with himself in an I Street parking lot.
8:58 a.m. A sprawl of slouchers swore a blue streak in an H Street alley. Police rustled them along.
9:13 a.m. A man with a red beard in a woolen skirt was heard using words like “kill” screaming in an I Street parking lot. He was warned away.
9:15 a.m. Two cars were rummaged through on Maple Lane, but nothing was taken.
9:37 a.m. A man fleeing a probation check on G Street was detained at taser point and arrested.
10:21 a.m. An unlocked vehicle on Janes Creek Drive was entered and relieved of any stealable property inside, which in this case turned out to be a diaper bag, iPod and miscellaneous coins.
11:45 a.m. It’s not the first time someone has been concerned for the little children a mother brings to Tavern Row. In this case, claimed a caller, she was smoking pot taking medicine with the swarthy swarm of sitabouts.
